Saturday, 19 March 2011

President Mubarak Resigns As Egypt's President; Armed Forces To Take Control

President Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. "The people ousted the president," chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.

Several hundred thousand protesters massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square exploded into joy, waving Egyptian flags, and car horns and celebratory shots in the air were heard around the city of 18 million in joy after Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement on national TV just after nightfall.

Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soliders stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building.

"In these grave circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the republic," a grim-looking Suleiman said. "He has mandated the Armed Forces Supreme Council to run the state. God is our protector and succor."

Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, whose young supporters were among the organizers of the protest movement, told The Associated Press,

"This is the greatest day of my life."

"The country has been liberated after decades of repression," he said adding that he expects a "beautiful" transition of power.

President Mubarak Refuses To Step Down

President Mubarak Refuses To Step Down, Vows To Pass Powers To Egypt's Vice
President Egypt's Hosni Mubarak refused to step down or leave the country and instead said he would hand his powers to his vice president Thursday, remaining president and ensuring regime control over the reform process. Stunned protesters in central Cairo who demand his ouster waved their shoes in contempt and shouted, "Leave, leave, leave."

The rapidly moving events raised the question of whether a rift had opened between President Mubarak and the military command. Hours earlier, a council of the military's top generals announced it had stepped in to secure the country, and a senior commander announced to protesters in Tahrir Square that all their demands would soon be met, raising cries of victory that President Mubarak was on his way out.

After President Mubarak's speech, protest organizers called for the army to take action to oust him, and they vowed increased protests on Friday. Several hundred thousand had packed into Tahrir Square, ecstatic with expectation that President Mubarak would announce his resignation in his nighttime address.

Instead, they watched in shocked silence as he spoke, slapping their foreheads in anger and disbelief. Some broke into tears.

Around a 1,000 marched on the state television headquarters several blocks away, guarded by the military with barbed wire and tanks. "They are the liars," the crowd shouted, pointing at the building, chanting, "We won't leave, they will leave."

Prominent reform advocate, Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, whose supporters were among the organizers of the 17-day-old wave of protests, issued a Tweet calling on the military to act.

"The army must save the country now," he said. "I call on the Egyptian army to immediately interfere to rescue Egypt. The credibility of the army is on the line."

Mohammed Mustapha, a protest spokesman, said, "We are waiting for a strong reaction from the army to President Mubarak's speech." He said "huge numbers" of protesters were expected Friday and that many wanted to march on the Oruba palace,President Mubarak's main presidential palace several miles away from Tahrir.

Immediately after President Mubarak's speech, Vice President Omar Suleiman called on the protesters to "go home" and asked Egyptians to "unite and look to the future."

In his 17-minute speech on state TV,President Mubarak spoke as if he were still in charge, saying he was "adamant to continue to shoulder my responsibility to protect the constitution and safeguard the interests of the people." He vowed that he would remain in the country and said he was addressing the youth in Tahrir as "the president of the republic."

"I saw fit to delegate the authorities of the president to the vice president, as dictated in the constitution," said President Mubarak, who looked frail but spoke in a determined, almost defiant voice.

Suleiman was already leading the regime's efforts to deal with the crisis. The constitution allows the president to transfer his powers if he is unable to carry out his duties "due to any temporary obstacle," but it does not mean his resignation.

Even in that case, the vice president still cannot request constitutional amendments or dissolve parliament.

Protesters Defiant

Egypt Labor Strikes Break Out Across The Country; Protesters Defiant

Thousands of state workers and impoverished Egyptians launched strikes and protests around the country on Wednesday over their economic woes as anti-government activists sought to expand their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak despite warnings from the vice president that protests won't be tolerated much longer.

Some 8,000 protesters, mainly farmers, set barricades of flaming palm trees in the southern province of Assiut, blocking the main highway and railway to Cairo to complain of bread shortages. They then drove off the governor by pelting his van with stones. Hundreds of slum dwellers in the Suez Canal city of Port Said set fire to part of the governor's headquarters in anger over lack of housing.

Efforts by Vice President Omar Suleiman to open a dialogue with protesters over reforms have broken down since the weekend, with youth organizers of the movement deeply suspicious that he plans only superficial changes far short of real democracy. They refuse any talks unless President Mubarak steps down first.

Showing growing impatience with the rejection, Suleiman issued a sharp warning that raised the prospect of a renewed crackdown. He told Egyptian newspaper editors late Tuesday that there could be a "coup" unless demonstrators agree to enter negotiations.

Further deepening skepticism of his intentions, he suggested Egypt was not ready for democracy and said a government-formed panel of judges, dominated by President Mubarak loyalists, would push ahead with recommending its own constitutional amendments to be put to a referendum.

"He is threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed," said Abdul-Rahman Samir, a spokesman for a coalition of the five main youth groups behind protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square. "But what would he do with the rest of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterward."

Suleiman is creating "a disastrous scenario," Samir said. "We are striking and we will protest and we will not negotiate until President Mubarak steps down. Whoever wants to threaten us, then let them do so," he added.

Nearly 10,000 massed in Tahrir on Wednesday in the 16th day of protests. Nearby, 2,000 more blocked off parliament, several blocks away, chanting slogans for it to be dissolved. Army troops deployed in the parliament grounds.

For the first time, protesters were calling forcefully Wednesday for labor strikes, despite a warning by Suleiman that calls for civil disobedience are "very dangerous for society and we can't put up with this at all."

A young leader of Egypt's anti-government protesters, newly released from detention, joined a massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the first time Tuesday and was greeted with cheers, whistling and thunderous applause when he declared: "We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime."

Many in the crowd said they were inspired by Wael Ghonim, the 30-year-old Google Inc. marketing manager who was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan. 25 to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Straight from his release from 12 days of detention, Ghonim gave an emotionally charged television interview Monday night where he sobbed over those who have been killed in two weeks of clashes.

He arrived in the square when it was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, a crowd comparable in size to the biggest demonstration so far that drew a quarter-million people. He spoke softly and briefly to the huge crowd from a stage and began by offering his condolences to the families of those killed.

"I'm not a hero but those who were martyred are the heroes," he said, breaking into a chant of "Mubarak leave, leave." When he finished, the crowd erupted in cheering, whistling and deafening applause.

Ghonim has emerged as a rallying point for protesters, who reject a group of traditional Egyptian opposition groups that have met with the government amid the most sweeping concessions the regime has made in its three decades in power.

Egypt's vice president met a broad representation of major opposition groups for the first time Sunday and offered new concessions including freedom of the press, release of those detained since anti-government protests began nearly two weeks ago and the eventual lifting of the country's hated emergency laws.

Two of the groups that attended the meeting said this was only a first step in a dialogue which has yet to meet their central demand the immediate ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

"People still want the president to step down," said Mostafa al-Naggar, a protest organizer and supporter of Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate and one of the country's leading democracy advocates.

"The protest continues because there are no guarantees and not all demands have been met," he added. "We did not sign on to the statement. This is a beginning of a dialogue. We approve the positive things in the statement but ... we are still demanding that the president step down."

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, made a similar statement after its representatives attended the meeting.
Vice President Omar Suleiman offered to set up a committee of judiciary and political figures to study proposed constitutional reforms that would allow more candidates to run for president and impose term limits on the presidency, the state news agency reported. The committee was given until the first week of March to finish the tasks.

The offer also included a pledge not to harass those participating in anti-government protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands at the biggest rallies. The government agreed not to hamper freedom of press and not to interfere with text messaging and Internet.

The offer to eventually lift emergency laws with a major caveat when security permits would fulfill a longtime demand by the opposition. The laws were imposed by Mubarak when he took office in 1981 and they have been in force ever since.

They give police far-reaching powers for detention and suppression of civil and human rights.

Egypt Ruling Party Leadership Resigns

the top leadership body of Egypt's ruling party, including the president's son Gamal Mubarak and the party secretary-general Safwat el-Sharif, resigned Saturday in a new gesture apparently aimed at convincing anti-government protesters that the regime is serious about reform.

Protesters have shrugged off other concessions by the regime in the past 12 days of unprecedented street demonstrations, saying they will settle for nothing less than the immediate ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's ruler for nearly 30 years.

State TV said the ruling party's six-member Steering Committee of the General Secretariat stepped down and was replaced.

The council was the party's highest decision-making body, and el-Sharif and other outgoing members were some of the most powerful and to many Egyptians, unpopular political figures in the regime.
El-Sharif was replaced by Hossam Badrawi, a party figure who had been sidelined within its ranks in recent years because of his sharp criticisms of some policies.

The new appointments to the body were largely young figures, one of the replacements Mohammed Kamal told The Associated Press. "It's a good change. It reflects the mood of change that is sweeping the country," he said.

Gamal Mubarak, who was a member of the Steering Committee, was widely seen as being groomed by his father Hosni Mubarak to succeed him as president. But Vice President Omar Suleiman promised earlier in the week that Gamal would not run for president in elections due in September.

The younger Mubarak was also head of the party's powerful policies committee, where for the past decade he led a campaign of economic liberalization. State TV said Gamal was also removed from that post and replaced by Badrawi.

The announcement was greeted with scorn by some of the tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Wael Khalil, a 45-year-old activist, said it would "reinforce their (protesters') resolve and increase their confidence because it shows that they are winning, and the regime is retreating inch by inch."

Day Of Departure

Day Of Departure, Feb. 4, 2011: Crowd To Call For Mubarak To Resign

Opposition parties called for Feb. 4 to be a "Day of Departure" earlier this week, All Voices reports. The plan: to come together in massive numbers and in one voice demand President Hosni Mubarak to step down once and for all.

Protesters demanding President Mubarak's ouster packed Cairo's central square in huge numbers Friday, waving Egyptian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering, appearing undaunted and determined after their camp withstood two days of street battles with regime supporters trying to dislodge them.

Thousands more flowed over bridges across the Nile into Tahrir Square, a sign that they were not intimidated after fending off everything thrown at the protesters by pro-President Mubarak attackers -- stones, firebombs, fighters on horses and camels and automatic gunfire.

The protesters passed through a series of beefed-up checkpoints by the military and the protesters themselves guarding the square.

The crowd, well over 10,000, was the biggest since Tuesday, when a quarter-million turned out.
They chanted, prayed and unfurled a long banner in the national colors of red, black and white.

Egyptian Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi and senior army officials visited the square Friday morning and soldiers were checking IDs and performing body searches at its entrances, a sign that Egypt's most powerful institution was sanctioning the demonstration.

Coinciding with "Day of Departure" events in Egypt, a demonstration is planned for Feb. 4 in New York City's Times Square, beginning at 3:30 p.m. local time. Meanwhile, a "Day of Rage" is planned in Syria for Feb. 4, with major protests in the capital city of Damascus.

President Mubarak Tells Egypt He Will Not Seek Re-Election

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he will not run for a new term in office in September elections, but rejected demands that he step down immediately and leave the country, vowing to die on Egypt's soil, in a television address Tuesday after a dramatic day in which a quarter-million protesters called on him to go.

President Mubarak said he would serve out the rest of his term working to ensure a "peaceful transfer of power" and carry out amendments to rules on presidential elections.

But the half-way concession - an end to his rule months down the road - was immediately derided by protesters massed in Cairo's main downtown square.

President Mubarak, who has ruled the country for nearly three decades, insisted that his decision not to run had nothing to do with the unprecedented protests that have shaken Egypt the past week.

"I tell you in all sincerity, regardless of the current circumstances, I never intended to be a candidate for another term."

"I will work for the final remaining months of the current term to accomplish the necessary steps for the peaceful transfer of power,"

President Mubarak, a former air force commander, resolutely vowed not to flee the country.

"This dear nation .. is where I lived, I fought for it and defended its soil, sovereignty and interests. On its soil I will die. History will judge me like it did others."

Egypt's New Government Announced

New Egypt Government To Be Appointed, But President Mubarak Refuses To Step Down.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak acknowledged his citizens' discontent and attempted to defuse the crisis in Egypt Friday night by announcing that a new government is on the way.

But the embattled president gave no indication that he himself planned to step down.

Specifically, Mubarak said that the current government has been asked to resign and he would appoint a new one on Saturday.

He gave no indications he himself planned to step down, despite increasing calls for him to do so.

President Mubarak's exact words: "I have requested the government to step down today. And I will designate a new government as of tomorrow to shoulder new duties."

The 82-year-old autocrat, who assumed power in Egypt 30 years ago, made the announcement following a day of widespread protests, violence and demonstrations.

Just hours before the activity on the streets began, Egypt cut off Internet networks throughout the country.

Egypt's New Government Announced On TV

President Mubarak announced the dissolving of the previous government late Friday, naming his intelligence chief and close aide Omar Suleiman as vice president and former Air Force general Ahmed Shafiq as prime minister. But protesters immediately rejected the move as an attempt byPresident Mubarak, Egypt's authoritarian ruler of nearly 30 years, to cling to power.

The new line-up of Cabinet ministers announced on state television included stalwarts of President Mubarak's regime but purged several of the prominent businessmen who held economic posts and have engineered the country's economic liberalization policies the past decades. Many Egyptians resented to influence of millionaire politician-moguls, who were close allies of Mubarak's son, Gamal, long thought to be the heir apparent for the presidency.

In the new Cabinet, Mubarak retained his long-serving defense minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi - and gave him an additional title of deputy prime minister - and also kept Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

But for some posts, President Mubarak brought in new blood by naming figures who hold widespread respect in their fields. For example, Gaber Asfour, a prominent literary figure, was named culture minister. He replaced the longest-serving Cabinet member, Farouq Hosni, who had held the post for more than 25 years.

Also, Egypt's most famous archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, was named state minister for antiquities, a new post.

State newspapers on Monday published a sternly worded letter from Mubarak to his new prime minister, Shafiq, ordering him to move swiftly to introduce political, legislative and constitutional reforms.

He also appeared to distance himself from the economic policies directed by his son Gamal, widely blamed for causing a wide gap between the rich and poor, for whom economic hardships have deepened. In the letter, President Mubarak urged "new economic policies that give maximum care to an economic performance which pays heed to the suffering of the citizens, and lightening their burden."

First Day Of Demonstrations

Protests started on Tuesday, January 25, inspired by the successful revolution in Tunisia.
thousands of people began taking to the streets to protest poverty, rampant unemployment, government corruption and autocratic governance of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for thirty years.

These were the first protests on such a large scale to be seen in Egypt since the 1970s.
The government responded by blocking Twitter, which was being used by organizers to coordinate protests.

Blocking Twitter not only enraged Egyptian citizens; it also brought increased national attention to the uprising. Over the course of the next two days, Egypt proceeded to block Facebook while the much-hated riot police took to the streets, arresting and injuring hundreds with batons, tear gas water cannons. Protests occurred not only in Cairo, the capital, but also in Alexandria and Suez, two other major cities.

The largest protests were planned for Friday, at which point the government took the unprecedented step of blocking all Internet services in the country. With Twitter and Facebook already down, email other social networking outlets fell as well. Text messaging was also blocked.

Protestors and journalists began finding alternate means of getting online and pushing out information.
During the day, the military was called in to take over security, a move that was welcomed by the protestors.

Most Egyptians are reported to hold the armed services in higher regard than the police.
After a long silence, President Hosni Mubarak appeared on state television to announce that while he would be dismissing the government, he would not resign.

Protestors continued to chant "Down, down with President Mubarak" after his announcement. Shortly afterwards President Obama made a televised appearance to say that he had spoken with the Egyptian president on the phone, and had urged him to take "concrete steps" towards reform.

As of Friday night, the streets were reported to be more quiet as Egypt waited for Saturday's announcement of a new government.

Egyptian anti-government activists continued to rock Cairo with a series of violent demonstrations for the second day.

National police forces used tear gas, beatings and live ammunition in an effort to disperse the mass protests, staged in a Tunisian-inspired effort to oust President Hosni Mubarak from office.